“To all appearances the fort was abandoned quickly,” Ky added, “that might explain why he wasn’t able to come back for them.”
“Reasonable,” Tareq said, “and our good luck. Right, my friend, Ky?”
With a grin, Ky nodded.
They spent the rest of the afternoon debating the different interpretations of the various papyrus, tablets and text.
Which put Raissa, to her amusement, between Ky and Tareq as they debated points and various interpretations.
Tareq pulled more papyri from the Museum’s vaults, their discussion bringing to mind other papyrus, translations of other documents. In the context of the new information they were getting valuable information from them, hints at other landmarks and routes. Copies of documents littered the office. It was impossible even for Raissa not to get excited. Every step brought them a little bit closer.
“Excuse me, Professor,” Komi said from the doorway in his usual halting, diffident way.
“Come on in, Komi,” Ky said, smiling.
Had it gotten that late? He hadn’t expected Komi until late in the afternoon, knowing how such things went. He glanced at his watch in surprise.
“Don’t worry, you’re not interrupting anything important.”
“Everything is arranged, Professor,” Komi said, bobbing his head a little to all of them in greeting and smiling. “Drivers will take all of the equipment to the dig site, with guards to assure it will all be there when we arrive.”
“Good,” Ky said, “that’s one less problem to worry about. Thank you, Komi.”
With another smile, Komi backed into a corner to lean against a wall and wait as the debate resumed with Tareq occasionally sending out for other references, until Tareq glanced at the clock and saw the time.
“We’ll have to resume our discussion tomorrow as the Museum closes shortly and I have other obligations this evening,” Tareq said, holding up a hand to Ky in amusement to curb his impatience. “We have all week, my friend. Life is not all papyrus, mummies and dust. You have a lovely young woman here. You should show her Cairo.”
He eyed Raissa appreciatively.
To Ky’s astonishment, Raissa blushed, shaking her head at Tareq’s blatant flirtation.
“Exactly,” Tareq said, smiling at her discomfort. “Go out to dinner, have a pleasant evening in good company. We’ll start again tomorrow in the morning. There is time, Ky, to enjoy the finer things in life as well. Shall I meet you at your hotel? Are you staying at the same place you usually do?”
“Yes,” he said, laughing as Tareq stood to come around the desk and clap him on the shoulder. “We’re staying at the usual hotel.”
“Good,” Tareq said.
He escorted them to the main hall where the last of the tourists were being guided out by a few of the guards before the men split up to make their rounds through the various halls to secure the doors in preparation for locking the museum down.
It surprised Ky to realize how late it had gotten.
The last of the tourists filed out through the main doors.
With a nod of respect to Tareq the guards disappeared down the hallways and up the stairs to finish their sweep to make certain no one was left.
“There is much of Cairo you should see,” Tareq said, lifting Raissa’s hand to kiss the back of it. “With one who can show it to you properly.”
She rolled her eyes in amusement but color suffused her face.
He looked at Ky sternly. “Take her to a nice restaurant, Ky, not the hotel.”
Before Ky could answer the front doors to the Museum slammed open with a crash of metal and glass and men rushed into the entryway.
Gunshots rang out through the building.
A burst of automatic weapon fire into the ceiling sent plaster raining down. It seemed to be a signal.
More men rushed through the front entry doors behind the first while others seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, some racing past the last of the tourists out on the mall, who looked at them, startled, as the black-clothed men passed by them. Others appeared from hallways that led to restrooms and storage closets where they’d hidden long enough for the guards to escort the tourists out.
Now they exploded out of hiding.
There were more than two dozen of them, their leader the one firing his weapon into the ceiling, looking at those in the center of the room.
Ky, Tareq, Raissa, Komi and Ryan.
Instinctively everyone ducked or flinched and then they froze.
All of the invaders were masked and armed. There wasn’t anything remotely close at hand that Ky could use as a weapon. He was too far away from the men to do anything effective, especially against automatic weapons.
Pointing his gun at Ky and Tareq, the leader snapped, “We want everything you have on the Tomb of the Djinn. You will give it to us or we will start shooting…if you doubt our purpose…”
He swiveled his gun toward Komi, leveled it.
Komi’s eyes widened in shock and horror.
It was clear to everyone in that moment that in the next second he would open fire and Komi would die as proof of their intent.
Raissa shot out an arm to push Komi aside and away from danger.
Everything was so clear and sharp, as it always was at such moments and it all seemed to happen so slowly…and so quickly.
Her hair swirled in the late afternoon sunlight that speared through the windows as she spun to face the attackers. It caught the light, reflected it, brilliantly. Light cascaded over it in a shimmer of gold.
Ky was stunned by the inevitability of it, by the calmness, the acceptance, in her expression as she turned to face the men who had stormed the room.
He saw what was about to happen and knew he couldn’t stop it even as he tried, knowing he couldn’t reach either of them in time.
There was no time to react, not enough time to do anything.
In the large space the sound of the gunshots echoed, three in rapid succession, as professional killers were trained to do.
Halting Ky where he stood. It was too late.
A double-tap, body shots, a more sure target, with the third to be sure.
They struck Raissa squarely in the chest, drove her back a step with each impact.
Ky saw the shock of it on her beautiful face. Her hand went to her chest in near disbelief as she registered what had happened, as the pain struck and was reflected in her eyes. For a moment she looked down, stared at the blood on her fingers in shock, spread them as she looked at them almost with incomprehension. Then she looked at her chest. At the neat holes there.
Even as he absorbed the knowledge of the loss of her, of the promise of whatever had been growing between them he waited for her to fall. A burst of grief went through him, and the beginnings of a cold rage.
That moment of silence seemed to stretch forever but probably lasted for only a few brief seconds. Moments the leader of the assassins allowed, to give them the time to absorb what had happened, what had been done, so they would understand just serious he was and that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill.
It had happened so sudden, so unexpectedly. It was like being punched hard in the chest, one, two, three times.
Raissa was caught completely off guard. She could only stare in disbelief, looking at her own blood on her hand.
For a moment she stared, uncomprehending, at the three holes so neatly centered in her chest.
Comprehension dawned.
They’d shot her.
No matter how or what she tried this couldn’t be explained away by clever words, some sleight of hand, some trick of time and place.
Anger came suddenly, instantly, her rage fierce as a grief and loss rushed through her like fire.
She lifted her eyes, looked at the one who had done it.
A coldness washed over her. Fury flashed through her like lightning, not hot, but cold, calculated, considered. She measured distances to her quarry as rage turned her vision red.
Chapter Sixteen
The air in the antechamber suddenly crackled like lightning before a storm as Raissa’s head snapped up and around to face the leader of the terrorists, the one who had shot her. Her blue eyes blazed with fury. Literally blazed, they seemed to leave a trail of brightness in the growing darkness. She flung her arms out. With a snap of her wrists swords appeared in each hand. She grasped them. Her long hair swirled around her, lifting as if a great wind had caught it, to catch the last of the sunlight in the flying tresses like a halo around her head and shoulders.
Ky stood frozen.
That raging fury limned every lovely line of her body.
As implacable as a lion she stalked toward those that had attacked them. A gesture, a snap of her wrists and suddenly there were swords in her hands. They had appeared out of nowhere, suddenly they were just there. He kept seeing that.
For a moment all he could do was stare.
The swords seemed to blaze with the reflection of the dying light of the sun. It was like watching some ancient goddess of battle come to life, Sehkmet, perhaps, or Astarte.
Her eyes burned brilliantly, filling the hall with an eldritch blue glare.
If anything, she looked even more beautiful than she had before.
As stunned as the rest of them, the leader of the bandits stared at her in astonishment and horror before he backed frantically away, whatever it was he saw in her eyes at first freezing him in place before it terrified him into sudden desperate movement.
She smiled, the expression terrible, implacable.
They all stood frozen in astonishment.
It was too incredible, it just wasn’t possible. That didn’t happen. The bullets should have killed her and swords didn’t just appear. Except that Ky had seen it with his own eyes.
He found himself caught by surprise, his instincts and training momentarily deserting him in the face of the inexplicable. It was quite simply incomprehensible, but he couldn’t deny what he saw with his own eyes.
Raissa.
One moment she was bowed over the pain, in the next moment she straightened, her head snapped around and her eyes flashed red before taking on that uncanny bluish glow, a look of furious despair on her face that was so deep, so strong, it broke his heart to see it.
And then she moved.
Fast.
He couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t think of it. Suddenly he recalled himself. There were the others, Tareq, Ryan, Komi, all in the line of fire.
They were his responsibility, he had to get them to safety, get them under cover while their assailants were distracted.
Raissa. Or whoever or whatever she was.
Some part of him grieved for what might have been.
“Tareq!”
His old friend was closest.
Grabbing Tareq, the closest, Ky wrenched at him, slung him toward cover.
That broke the other man’s paralysis. They ran for shelter.
“Ryan, Komi,” Ky shouted.
He glanced back over his shoulder to see Ryan take hold of the stunned Komi before both of them scrambled behind one of statues. They threw their arms over their heads instinctively as they crouched behind cover, knowing bullets were about to fly.
Ky glanced at Tareq as they pressed themselves into the shelter offered by the statue. Ironically, the statue of General Khai.
“Did you know?” Tareq asked, with a tilt of his head toward the madness behind them.
And Raissa.
“What do you think?” Ky said, his tone dry. “Hell, no.”
“Kill her,” the leader shouted.
The invaders opened fire, bullets sprayed in bursts.
They had only one target, the one who stalked down the stairs toward the men who stood staring at her in terrible fascination.
Drawn by the gunfire, the shout drew Raissa’s attention back to him.
Her head snapped around and the man found himself transfixed by that lambent blue gaze.
She smiled.
That smile was terrible to see.
Ky could only stare.
Her pretty lips peeled back from her teeth to reveal lengthening fangs, so white against the pale rosy pink of those lips.
Her voice echoed, rang, in the empty room.
“Good luck with that,” she growled, softly, smiling wickedly, using one of Ryan’s favorite phrases, “but I’m afraid you’re far too late for that. You see, I’m already dead.”
In terror one of the men emptied his gun into her chest. Each impact made her twitch. Blood flew.
She looked down at the bleeding holes, frowned in displeasure.
Her eyes lifted and that cold luminous blue gaze would have chilled even the hardest of men.
She smiled again.
“Clearly, you weren’t listening. I said I’m already dead. What part of that did you not understand?”
The first of the men came at her, raised his weapon and she spun, swords glittering in the setting sunlight reflected by the windows.
Blood flew as she dove and rolled past him even as he dropped to his knees, his hands wrapped around his neck. His throat cut, he slowly toppled as she stalked away.
The next tracked her with his weapon trying to get a bead on her while his companions scattered but she was moving too fast. She was on her feet again, standing in front of him. Her swords struck, like scissors, crosswise, and his chance was gone.
As was his head and his life.
It wasn’t in Ky to sit and wait when he could do something and whatever else was happening, whatever was going on, whatever else she was, Raissa was alone out there. There was also no guarantee they would survive without her if they managed to bring her down.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Komi and Ryan were also still in danger.
He looked at Tareq, who nodded.
Even without a weapon, with his training Ky was more than capable of doing some damage. It was hardly the first time he and Tareq had faced trouble together, although not of this caliber.
Still.
Then a weapon came his way.
One of the terrorists raced around the statues, probably looking for hostages, but Raissa saw the man first.
Tossing her left-hand sword in the air, she caught it neatly, turned and threw it backhanded in one swift, smooth motion.